I Like to Read, You Like to Watch the Life Drain Out of a Person is a 56-poem collection. This was written between late 2024 and early 2025. The poems here confront mental health, identity, pain, resilience, and the complexities of existence. All of these are written from the perspective of a transgender man navigating life in Ohio.
Content Warnings
This collection contains references to suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, childhood trauma, emotional inability to regulate, identity struggle, internalized rage, dissociation, mental illness including borderline personality disorder, self-harm, self-erasure, PTSD, panic, and depersonalization. This work is not softened; it is shadow work in its darkest and barest form.
Why Read This Collection
These poems bleed, scream, and name what was never supposed to be spoken. This collection is for readers prepared to engage with shadow work, emotional truth, and the survival of a human being facing immense struggle. Each poem invites reflection, awareness, and empathy.
Sunset at the Mound on the Heath/Newark Ohio Border with Luna
On January 23, after a full day of winter hiking around Hocking Hills and Licking County, Luna and I stopped at an earthwork in the Heath, Ohio. Where we decided watch the sun drop behind ancient earth. We walked about a mile along the length of the mound at low light, dusted snow underfoot, and cold air rolling down from the hills.
This wasn’t just any hill. What we walked along was part of the Newark Earthworks, one of the most remarkable prehistoric complexes of geometric earthworks in the world, built between roughly 100 BCE and 400 CE by Indigenous peoples often called the Hopewell culture.
What the Newark Earthworks Are and Why They Matter
The Newark Earthworks are a National Historic Landmark and World Heritage Site recognized in 2023 for their ancient craftsmanship and cultural significance.
The complex originally spread over several square miles of what is now Licking County, anchored by monumental earthen structures including the Great Circle Earthworks, the Octagon Earthworks, and the Wright Earthworks. The walls you see rising gently from the ground are not random hills but carefully constructed embankments, once part of geometric patterns aligned with cosmic cycles.
At the Great Circle Earthworks, for example, the nearly 1,200‑foot diameter enclosure is one of the largest prehistoric geometric earthworks in the Americas, with walls originally up to 8 to 13 feet high surrounding a deep ditch that may once have held water.
These works were more than simple mounds. Archaeologists now interpret them as multi‑purpose cultural landscapes used for ceremony, social gathering, astronomy, seasonal observation and memorialization, built by Indigenous people with deep knowledge of geometry and the sky.
Part of the mound
Hopewell Culture and Indigenous Wisdom Beneath Our Feet
Although we lack direct written records from those who built them, what the earthworks tell us is profound. These structures are part of a network of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks across Ohio, collectively recognized for their monumental scale and alignment to solar and lunar events.
For centuries, Indigenous peoples traveled, met, traded and participated in spiritual gatherings around these sites. The precision of placements and connections among enclosures suggests knowledge of astronomy and cosmology far beyond mere utilitarian construction.
Walking along the mound as the sun lowered, it was easy to feel a sense of time deep time, held in the earth beneath my steps, not just as distant history but as lived landscape.
More of the mound
Sunset Light and Winter Walk Energy
January’s sunset brings a special light. Golden rays flatten across ancient embankments and bring out texture in what otherwise looks like low, gentle rises in the ground. Luna and I walked about a mile of these earthen lines, the long shadows changing faster than the chill. The quiet of winter, sparse birds, cold wind, distant cars on the Ohio roads, made the moment feel wide in memory even if short on clock time.
Sunset over the mound
Mounds, Meaning and Respect
These earthworks are sacred places as much as they are archaeological landmarks. They were built for ceremony and memory by real people whose descendants today maintain cultural ties to this land. Visiting them demands curiosity, respect, and quiet observation rather than disturbance.
The Great Circle, near where Luna and I walked, could once have hosted gatherings of people from across the region, moments of shared meaning held in earth and sky that were much more than simple trails or tourist stops.
Quick Facts for Visitors
Location: Near the border of Heath and Newark, Ohio in Licking County. Builder: Created by Indigenous peoples of the Hopewell culture between about 100 BCE and 400 CE. Designations: National Historic Landmark, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Structures: Includes the Great Circle Earthworks, Octagon Earthworks, and Wright Earthworks. Purpose: Likely used for ceremony, astronomy, social gathering and memorial practices shaped by landscape and cosmos.
Standing near these earthworks at sunset with Luna was a reminder that Ohio’s past is vast, visible, and deeply present in its landforms. The lines of earth underfoot tell stories of ancient organization, knowledge and presence. These stories long outlast cold winters and quick days. The mound was quiet at dusk, but in its silence was an invitation to listen across centuries, a living memory beneath winter sky.
Sometimes we wait for a prince to save us… or discover we must save him ourselves. Sometimes the Prince Needs Saved is more than a collection of poem. This is a season captured in words, 69 pieces of lived emotion, written mostly in 2025. This is a book for anyone navigating love, grief, identity, or the quiet acts of becoming.
Sometimes the prince needs saved cover
Within these pages you’ll find poems that speak to the fractured and the whole, the tender and the fierce. Moments of heartbreak, moments of discovery, moments when identity is questioned and reclaimed. Each poem is a witness to a life lived, a journey felt in bones, in breath, in quiet nights.
Whether you seek reflection, understanding, or just a voice that meets you where you are, this collection opens doors to introspection, empathy, and emotional clarity. These poems are intended for readers who do not shy away from the raw edges of life, who appreciate lyrical honesty and emotional depth.
The ebook is available as a PDF download, easy to read on any device and always ready to accompany quiet moments, reflective evenings, or moments of self-care.
Carry these poems with you… let them sit in your chest, echo in your thoughts, and hold your heart when you need it most. Sometimes the Prince Needs Saved is now available for instant download. Explore, reflect, and become alongside these 69 poems of life, love, grief, and identity.
This piece is the first of ten short stories. I will share these periodically across my platforms, including WordPress, Substack, Wattpad, and other publishing spaces. Each story in this series stands alone, but together they form a broader examination of the systems that shape us. These works are released intentionally over time, allowing space for reflection rather than consumption. This series blends literary fiction with social commentary. Here I spend time focusing on lived experience, psychological impact, and the long shadow of decisions made for us. New entries will be published as they are completed.
Blurb
The story follows Aaron, who was born a healthy biological girl. Just to be immediately assigned a male identity by her parents and doctors. In this society, a child’s body is treated as a “public object” to be shaped and corrected by others. When Aaron reaches puberty, described as a “blood-red warning siren,” he is placed on hormone blockers to prevent him from developing into a woman.
Anonymous Aaron
Aaron was born on an uneventful morning. The air carried the smells of lemon disinfectant and rain-soaked Las Vegas asphalt. A healthy baby girl, the doctor would have said. He would have been pleased with the symmetry of her limbs, the steady thump of her heart, and the decibel her shriek could reach. Her mother cried, and her father laughed too loud. They chose the name Aaron respectfully. Names were not meant to make sense in this world until later in life. So Aaron, the healthy boy, was born, though boy was already a stretch.
They wrapped him in a blue blanket and told him he was perfect, at least for the time being.
The photos would later show a calm baby, eyes open, unfocused, already tuned into something deeper beyond the love in the room. Aaron would never remember the warmth of that blanket or the way hands passed him around like proof of success. What stayed, buried deep and wordless, was the first lesson of his life. His body was a public object. It would be shaped, discussed, corrected, and inevitably made into what they wanted it to be.
Puberty arrived like a blood-red warning siren.
A single pimple at first, angry and bright on his chin. Then another. Leg hair darkening, spreading in thin lines that felt illicit, something to hide. His chest stayed flat, his voice stayed level, until one red drip from between his legs met the cotton lamb chop character briefs he still wore. The signs were enough.
The nurse smiled too hard when she called Aaron’s name. His parents sat straighter.
The first dose of hormone blockers came in a white room that smelled faintly of lemon, eerily similar to the day of his birth. Aaron was told this was kindness. A pause button. A gift. A way to prevent him from becoming something unacceptable. His mother squeezed his hand and asked if he was excited. His father nodded as if excitement were mandatory, like consent was already signed.
Aaron said yes, of course.
Inside his head, there was only stillness. No sense of rescue. No feeling of alignment. Just the quiet knowledge that nothing about his body had ever felt wrong until the world began insisting that it was. He liked the way his legs carried him. He liked the way he played with makeup in secret. Likewise, he liked the softness of himself, unaltered and intact.
But liking it was dangerous, not allowed, even illegal.
He learned quickly to perform relief. To thank doctors. To rehearse lines about dysphoria he did not feel. Silence became survival. Every unspoken thought was folded smaller and smaller until it fit behind his ribs, where breasts would never be allowed to bud. The world always called Aaron, him, and he did not correct them. At first, he did not even understand the concept of not being transgender. Correcting meant punishment.
Time skipped forward the way it does when nothing belongs to you.
At seventeen, Aaron’s mother drove him to the spa where they checked in the night before his eighteenth birthday. The building was all soft lighting and stone floors. Water murmured behind the walls like something alive. It was dubbed a “wellness retreat.” Aaron was handed a robe, a schedule, and congratulations on becoming a man. He barely managed not to scoff at the final “gift”.
The bed was too clean. The sheets were tucked tight enough to trap him.
He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to his breath. Tomorrow his female body would be permanently altered. Tomorrow the performance would become irreversible. He thought about the acne that never got worse, and the leg hair that never spread the way it wanted to. He thought about the mirror, about how familiar his reflection still was, and mourned how briefly he had been allowed to know the her he felt he was meant to be.
Excitement would be painted painfully on his face in the morning.
For now, horror sat quietly with him in the dark.
He pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the steady beat that had been praised at birth, never once defective, never once confused.
And in the silence of his mind, he finally admitted what he had always known.
He was cisgender.
He was a girl being forced to become a man in a world where refusing transition was the only unforgivable thing.
The anesthesiologist walked him through counting backward from one hundred.
One hundred.
Ninety-nine.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-seven.
Aaron drifted off just as he pictured himself in a dress for the first time.
Before you leave-
Thank you for reading this first story in the series. I hope Aaron’s journey gave you pause, stirred thought, or echoed something within your experience. More stories will be released periodically across WordPress, Substack, Wattpad, and other platforms. These will each explore the pressures that shape us. Follow along, and check back soon to continue the series. There is more to come.
Comment below and tell me what you think about my first short story. How would you feel if you lived in Aaron’s world? Does this make you view body autonomy a little differently? Consider sharing with someone you think would enjoy reading my first short thriller in my upcoming free-to-read collection, “The Scars of Fitting In: A Collection of Short Psychological Thrillers.“
A Winter Walk Through Conkle’s Hollow, Where Ice Meets Stone
On a cold December day in 2025, I first stepped onto the Conkle’s Hollow Gorge Trail, and I knew I’d be back. Perfectly tucked into the rich Hocking Hills region of southeastern Ohio. This State Nature Preserve draws hikers for its towering Black Hand sandstone cliffs rising nearly 200 feet (ca. 61 m) above the shaded valley floor. And of course for the narrow gorge that feels carved by time itself. The frozen ground, fallen leaves and winter hush slowed us down just enough to allow us to experience the full beauty of winter in Ohio.
Kelsey & Axton
The Return After Cantwell
After the icy return from Cantwell Cliffs, on January 23, I came back to Conkle’s Hollow. This trip my partner Kelsey and our friend Kylie came along also. We visited the grotto, and saw two frozen falls while we made new memories.
The Gorge Trail starts out accessible a paved path through a cool canyon of ferns, moss, and deep shadows. Flat enough that people often think of it as very easy in warm weather. In winter, when ice seals every rock and forms frozen patches, it demands respect and slow steps.
We left the concrete walkway and entered the dirt-trail stretch. This is where the gorge narrows, and tree roots twist across worn rock. The cold was sharp between cliff walls, silent except for our footsteps, conversation, and laughter.
At the head of the hollow, the waterfall lay before us, a sculpted cascade of ice and black stone. It was not rushing with spring thaw, but frozen into quiet architecture. A tall and inviting angel of ice. It felt like a reward, for my commitment to return, in December the fall was void of even ice.
Kylie & Stick
Icy Steps, Butt Slides, and Winter Realities
There was one part that tested us all. the steps back out. Kelsey found the ice so slick that they had to carefully slide down on their butt. Smart, one controlled tug at a time, rather than risk a fall. Winter on stone is beautiful, but it’s also unpredictable. The paved trail that’s easy in summer turned into glassy slope in January, and footing matters more than speed.
Conkle’s Hollow’s lower trail (paved portion) is often about 0.5 miles each way but in winter it feels longer, each step a negotiation with ice and shadow. Hikers should always check current conditions, wear suitable traction, and move with intention when temperatures dip and water becomes more like stone.
Kelsey sits on the steps.
Have you ever had to make a safe exit creatively? Tell me how you did it in the comments.
3 Musket Queers & The Grotto
Why Conkle’s Hollow Stands Out
Conkle’s Hollow isn’t just a trail, it’s a deep, cool gorge named for early explorer W.J. Conkle, whose name was once carved into sandstone within the hollow. The valley floor supports a rich ecosystem of ferns, hemlock, wildflowers, and moss that thrives in the shaded canyon. This is one of the deepest gorges in Ohio despite its modest trail length.
The rock here is ancient Black Hand sandstone, formed long before Ohio was dotted with trails and preserves. Over eons water and climate slowly carved this gorge. cliffs Today the hollow holds cascading waterfalls in wetter months and dramatic ice in winter.
Small Frozen Fall
Trail Tips for Winter Hikes Like This
Traction devices are worth having. Things like winter boots with microspikes or traction will change an almost impassable section into a managed stretch. Poles help balance especially on packed ice and uneven terrain. Respect the preserve’s rules. Luna stayed home dogs are not permitted in Conkle’s Hollow State Nature Preserve. So plan hikes depending on location and land regulations.
Frost Flowers. I have now seen twice in my life. Both times in this location.
A Season to Return
We may save the rest of the dirt trail for a visit in spring. When ice melts and water flows edge to edge over the stone. Standing before that frozen cascade was a moment in itself. Quiet, still, and deeply rooted in place. There’s something in winter hiking that makes a trail feel like a secret told only to those who return with patience, preparation, and a little warmth in their pack.
Conkle’s Hollow reminded me that running into winter on a trail is not about distance, it’s about presence. It’s about the cold ice on stone, the hush between trees, the sound of boots on packed earth, and the ice-sealed waterfall waiting for another season. I walked it in winter with friends twice, and it felt like finding a story already in the landscape, just waiting for us to step in and read it.
Share with a friend you want to explore Conkles Hollow or another Gorge with this winter season.
On January 20, around 4pm, Luna and I pulled into the Cantwell Cliffs trailhead inside Hocking Hills State Park. This is a place known for deep sandstone gorges, rugged terrain, and a waterfall that peeks over the cliff edge in wetter seasons. Cantwell Cliffs sits in a more remote and quieter area of Hocking Hills. It is no less dramatic in its geology and vibes though.
Cantwell Cliffs
This trail is carved by the erosion of water through Blackhand sandstone, forming towering cliffs up to 150. And of course my favorite type: unique narrow passages like Fat Woman’s Squeeze.
Winter had settled in hard this week. The stone steps that lead down toward the waterfall, steps that usually give way to moss, soil, and leaf litter, now completely glazed in ice. Around 0.4 miles in, with Luna leashed and alert but feeling my unsure cues, we turned back. I have to listen then instinct speaks, my instincts told me we had gone far enough. The air was cold, the footing slick, and every step demanded focus. I don’t take dangerous risks in this manner. We turned back at the top of the frozen steps, crocs crunching ice on the trail and silence surrounding us.
Kylie, Kelso, &Axton
Return Trip: January 23 with Company and Better Eyes on the Trail
A few days later, on January 23, I returned with my partner and our friend Kylie, a perfect team for winter hiking. Sharp eyes, quick laughs, and an easy readiness to pivot plans when conditions demand it. The trail, a loop with both rim and canyon routes, was still icy, our confidence grew as we descended beyond the first switchback.
We made it farther this time, to where the waterfall usually tumbles over the cliff’s edge. Today the water wasn’t exactly falling, it was frozen. The rest of the trail simply impassable without traction devices. The ice was thick, smooth, and unyielding, a reminder that winter beauty can be equal parts breathtaking and brutal. So we called it there, admired the frozen gorge and soaked in the steep walls rising around us.
Comment and share a time you knew you should turn around. What was the moment you knew the risk was not one you needed to take? How did you prepare better for your next visit?
Cantwell cliffs frozen waterfall
Trail Realities
Cantwell Cliffs’ trails are moderate to strenuous. They are a mix of rim views and valley floor loops that can take one to two miles to complete. The stairs and rock steps that are fun in spring and fall become tricky in winter without gear. This hike is one where maps matter, muddy or frozen conditions demand caution, and everyone, dogs included, need attentive footing.
The park allows well-behaved pets on leash, so Luna’s presence was completely in line with trail etiquette. But winter on ice makes most four-legged friends slower and more cautious.
Gear on the Way: Poles, Headlamps, Spikes
I already ordered hiking poles and a couple of headlamps. Incoming night hikes? DUH! Those poles will add balance and support on uneven rock steps to say the least. Next on the list is spikes. Microspikes or traction devices that bite into ice and make icy slopes climbable rather than perilous. On the next order, spikes are a priority. We may save the full trail for spring melt. Water flow will return to the falls and the trail will soften underfoot.
I love Rocks!!
Cantwell Cliffs in Context: History, Geology & What Makes It Worth It
Cantwell Cliffs is not just a destination for waterfall views. It’s a State Nature Preserve with history dating from its conservation roots in the early 1900s. Formal preserve designation happened here in the 1970s. Remarkable and remaining still one of the less visited, more rugged parts of Hocking Hills. The gorge and cliff walls were formed over millions of years as Blackhand sandstone eroded. Thus creating deep box canyons, overhangs, and passages that feel alive with time.
That raw geology is what makes winter hikes like this one special. The trees are bare so contours pop in the light. You can almost read layers of stone like a palimpsest. Waterfalls turn to glassy ice sculptures waiting for a safer season to sing again.
Looking Ahead: When the Water Really Falls
If you wait for spring snowmelt and seasonal rain, Cantwell Cliffs often contains a beautiful fall. Though modest yet lovely it cascade over the rock shelter that feels earned after the descent.
Winter is beautiful, but spring may be our comeback. Poles, daylight stretching, and warmer ground.
Cantwell Cliffs reminded us of what winter hiking really asks: patience, respect for conditions, humility, and the willingness to turn back. When instincts give you blessings rather than push forward you listen to the warning, and you come back. Luna was safe, we were safe, and the cliffs still stand ready for the next chapter.
Share with someone who you think appreciates following natural instincts when outdoors.
Want to explore more?
Visit Poeaxtry and the Prism’s Archive Cheat Sheet. Discover all post categories, with a blurb and link to full post archive for each. Then find every post in that category in chronological order.
On January 6th, I walked the Flint Ridge to the Creek Trail, a modest distance, just under two miles, but heavy with time. This was not a mileage day, it was a listening day. Winter had stripped the woods back to their bones. No leaves to soften the view, no green distractions, no canopy to hide the land’s shape. Just stone, bark, frozen ground, and the quiet pressure of cold air sitting against the skin.
January in central Ohio does not ease you in. The air was sharp without being cruel, cold enough to keep the trail firm and the mud locked in place. A thin crust of frost clung to shaded patches, crunching under my crocs. While open stretches stayed dry and reliable. Wind moved lightly through the ridge, not howling, just enough to remind you that winter was in full effect. And she was paying attention. This coldness rewards preparation and punishes distraction, gloves on, layers balanced, breath steady.
Location, Location, Location…
Frozen pond with barren tree limbs and sticks
Flint Ridge sits in Licking County, Ohio, preserved today as a State Memorial. Long before trail markers, paved lots, and signage, this ridge was one of the most significant prehistoric flint quarry sites in North America. For more than 10,000 years, Indigenous peoples returned here again and again to extract flint. This stone is prized for its durability, predictability, and clean fractures. Projectile points, blades, scrapers, and tools made from Flint Ridge flint have been found across much of eastern North America. This is evidence of vast trade networks and migration routes that existed long before colonial borders or state lines.
Geology
One of the ancient quarries filled with frozen rainfall
The geology is the reason the ridge exists at all. Layers of Mississippian-age limestone hold dense seams of high quality flint, exposed through erosion and time. What you see today, shallow pits, uneven ground, subtle rises and dips, are not random. They are the physical record of careful extraction methods repeated across generations. These are not careless scars. They are marks of knowledge, restraint, and survival.
Trails
Walking this trail in winter makes those features easier to read. Without undergrowth, the old quarry depressions stand out clearly, small bowls in the earth that catch shadow and light differently. You are not just walking through woods, you are moving across an active historical document. This one was written in stone and absence.
The Flint Ridge to the Creek Trail begins near the quarry landscape and gradually descends toward water. The grade is gentle, approachable for most hikers, and well suited to days when you want presence over push. Underfoot, the ground feels distinct, firmer, and rockier in places. Almost, as if the land is reminding you what it is made of. Dogs and kids are welcome. Though the trails aren’t exactly ADA accessible, there is a nice-paved part with educational sines and a museum.
As the trail drops, sound becomes more noticeable. Water moving beneath thin ice, then opening up again, a distant-low conversation that cuts through the quiet. The creek is not wide or dramatic, but it anchors the hike. Stone and water have always worked together here, shaping tools, shaping trade, shaping movement.
Dogs
Luna
As mentioned, it is a dog friendly trail. Though, hiking it with a dog in winter adds another layer of attentiveness. Leashes are required, and for good reason. The terrain is uneven in spots, and the historical features deserve protection. Winter conditions also mean watching paws for ice buildup and cold exposure. I always make Luna don booties. You need to remember water even when temperatures are low. Always stay alert near the creek edge. The trail length makes it a solid outing for dogs who enjoy exploration without overexertion, especially on colder days.
Ethics
Flint Ridge State Memorial is a protected site, collecting flint or removing natural materials is prohibited. This matters. Rockhounding ethics are not optional here. The ridge has already given enough. The act of leaving everything where it lies is part of respecting the thousands of years of use that came before modern recreation.
Field view at flint ridge park
More trail traits
The trail itself is well-marked and easy to follow, even in winter. Foot traffic keeps it visible, and the shorter distance makes it accessible while still feeling meaningful. This is not a destination built around spectacle. There is no overlook designed for photos, no dramatic payoff at the end. The reward is cumulative, built step by step. The pieces of flint and quartz you see along the way, and the history.
More trails and things to see
Flint Ridge State Memorial also includes additional trails and an interpretive center. Education here goes deeper into the archaeology, geology, and cultural significance of the site. Even without stepping inside, the land teaches quietly. It shows how landscapes hold memory, and how walking can be a form of respect when done intentionally.
Educational sign
This January hike did not need distance to feel complete. Just under two miles was enough to feel grounded, slowed, and centered. Winter sharpened the experience, stripped it down to essentials. Stone. Water. Breath. Time.
If you hike Flint Ridge, go gently. Stay on trail. Keep dogs leashed. Leave what you find. Let the ridge speak for itself. Bring your kinds and educate them. The story is already there, layered beneath your boots, older than any of us, and still very much alive.
Large mushroom growths on the trail
Want to explore more?
Visit Poeaxtry and the Prism’s Archive Cheat Sheet. Discover all post categories, with a blurb and link to full post archive for each. Then find every post in that category in chronological order.
What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?
When people ask what I enjoy doing most in my leisure time, the simple answer sounds scattered. I hike. I rockhound, craft with what I find. Practice spirituality, and write poetry or even stories. I randomly game, I smoke mad weed. On paper, those can look unrelated, yet in practice, they are all deeply connected. Each one feeds the others. Each one works a different part of my mind, body, and spirit. Together, they form a balanced creative ecosystem.
This is not about killing time. It is about how I choose to live inside it.
Hiking, Movement, and Listening to Land
Hiking is the foundation. Especially in Ohio and the surrounding Appalachian foothills, the land holds quiet complexity. Short trails, long trails, winter hikes, summer heat, all of it teaches presence. Hiking gives my body something honest to do. One foot forward. Breath in rhythm. Attention outward.
On trail, my thoughts slow down without being forced. The noise drops away naturally. I notice rock layers, creek cuts, moss lines, erosion patterns. Hiking is where curiosity wakes up first. It is also where respect for land is reinforced. You cannot rush a trail and expect to receive anything back.
Rockhounding, Touching Deep Time
Rockhounding grows directly out of hiking. It is not about collecting endlessly. It is about noticing what the land reveals. Ohio is rich with flint, chert, fossils, and glacial remnants, each piece a fragment of deep time.
Holding stone changes perspective. Rocks do not care about urgency. They teach patience, scale, and restraint. Ethical rockhounding matters to me, knowing where collection is allowed, taking only what is appropriate, and leaving protected sites untouched. This practice sharpens awareness and reinforces accountability.
Crafting with Foraged Finds, Making Meaning Tangible
Crafting with my foraged finds is where movement and observation turn into creation. Stone that sat quietly for millions of years becomes something carried, worn, or used with intention. I cut, polish, drill, wire wrap, or leave pieces raw depending on what they ask for.
This kind of crafting is slow. It is tactile. It demands attention. Each piece holds memory, the hike it came from, the weather that day, the moment it caught my eye. Making something with my hands grounds me in ways digital work never fully can.
Spiritual Practice, Intuition, and Ritual
My spirituality is not separate from the land or the craft. It grows out of them. Walking, stone, water, fire, all of these are already spiritual teachers if you listen. My practice is personal, grounded, and experiential rather than performative.
Rituals, tarot, pendulum work, and intention setting are tools for reflection, not escape. They help me process emotion, clarify direction, and stay aligned with values. Spirituality gives language to things that logic alone cannot hold.
Writing Poetry and Stories, Translating Experience
Writing is where everything comes together. Hiking provides the images, stone – metaphor, spiritual practice – themes, crafting – texture, and poetry or stories translate lived experience into something shareable.
I write because it is how I make sense of the world. Poetry allows compression, intensity, and emotional truth. Stories allow expansion, narrative, and exploration. Both are necessary. Writing is not a hobby I turn on and off. It is a way of processing existence.
Gaming, Focused Escape and Pattern Recognition
Gaming serves a different purpose. It is structured escape. Clear rules. Immediate feedback. Achievable goals. After long creative or emotional output, gaming lets my brain rest without going numb.
Games sharpen pattern recognition, decision making, and problem solving. They offer worlds where effort is rewarded predictably, which is not always the case in creative work. This balance matters.
Weed, Slowing Down and Sensory Reset
Smoking weed is part of my leisure time, not as avoidance, but as intentional slowing. It softens edges. It deepens sensory awareness. Music hits differently. Thoughts wander productively. Physical tension releases.
Used responsibly, it supports reflection and creativity. It pairs naturally with writing, crafting, or quiet gaming sessions. It is another tool, not a crutch.
How It All Connects
None of these exist in isolation. Writing drains energy. Gaming restores it. Weed smooths transitions between states.
This is how I stay balanced. This is how I stay creative. Leisure, for me, is not passive consumption. It is active relationship, with land, with material, with imagination, and with self.
What I enjoy most in my leisure time is not any single activity. It is the way they weave together into a life that feels intentional. Each one reminds me to slow down, pay attention, and create something honest out of what I am given.
Time is not something to kill. It is something to inhabit.
Frozen Quarry at Flint Ridge filled with rainfall.
Eco-friendly Hiking Plan
This year the goal is simple but deliberate, energetic, we hike sustainably where we live first. I take you all virtually to explore Ohio’s state parks, preserves, arboretums, city parks, hidden gems, and more. I will also fold in planned travel to visit my sister in North Carolina. As well as trips back home to West Virginia. I plan to even sprinkle in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan. I’ll do this in a way that honors the land, reduces my carbon impact, and celebrates the natural world local.
We’re not waiting to see the world somewhere else. We’re learning to love the world right where we are.
Why Eco-Friendly Hiking Matters
Eco-Friendly hiking isn’t about guilt. It’s about intention. It means hiking where you already are and where you’re already going. Instead of planning huge trips that blow your carbon-footprint out of the sustainable realm. It means choosing nearby parks and preserves over flights, embracing city parks, local trails, hidden overlooks, and lake shore paths. And still planning longer multi-state legs when meaningful and reasonable.
This approach:
Shrinks the carbon footprint, builds local connection, deepens seasonal awareness, supports local economies, and grows appreciation for everyday nature.
Some of Ohio’s State Parks, Preserves, and Outdoor Wonders We’re Seeing
Hocking Hills State Park
A cornerstone of Ohio hiking with waterfalls, deep rock shelters, winding forest trails, and sandstone ravines. It’s dramatic, popular, and beautiful, but also a reminder that crowds can challenge trails and quiet places alike. Hiking sustainably means going off-peak or seeking the lesser-known corners of the park to spread impact. As well as signing up for permits (they are free for specific areas) to protect the environment.
Maumee Bay State Park
Perched on Lake Erie’s shore, this 1,336-acre park offers boardwalk hiking, wetlands, bird watching, fishing, and nature observation. Bonus – No miles of difficult terrain, great for low impact days and water-linked hikes.
Highbanks Metro Park
This park is just north of Columbus with roughly ten trails. It has massive bluffs above the Olentangy River, ancient earthworks, and a nature center. Here you can learn how this all connects to geology and culture. The Perfect place for mindful hikes that meet both history and ecosystem.
Kelleys Island State Park
I may be most excited for this one. Sitting on Lake Erie the island park with six miles of mixed trails, shoreline, habitats, and glacial grooves. This is a place where water meets stone and slow walks deliver unexpected insight.
Hidden Nature Preserves like Wahkeena Nature Preserve, with wetlands and orchid habitat, unique fen landscapes, and boardwalk trails. Offering us a lesson in preservation and quiet observation.
City and Gateway Gems
Arboretums, hidden parks, local preserves, and more. Hudson Springs Park with lakes and easy trails. The Holden Arboretum canopy walk, mixing local beauty with accessible low-impact visits.
Smaller hidden spots like the Buckeye Trail that spans over 1,400 miles of varied terrain, linking birding routes, marshes, forests, prairies, and beaches right across Ohio. These places work at reminding us that nature doesn’t need to be far.
Comment and share ways you already practice Eco-Friendly hiking, or ways you plan to practice them in the coming year! I love to hear from all of you!
North Carolina
We’ll hike trails near Asheville and the Blue Ridge parkway. I’ll be prioritizing waterfalls, overlook points and local favorites.
West Virginia and Pennsylvania Routes
Read a poem I wrote here Mount wood Overlook – Wheeling, Wv
West Virginia’s natural treasures like North Bend State Park provide rail-trail hiking and wooded climbs with minimal emissions per mile. Nearby Pennsylvania’s Raccoon Creek State Park or Ryerson Station State Park. These offer forested trails that are a short drive from the Ohio border and great for combined adventures.
Michigan Days
Lake shore paths, urban parks and natural dunes, give us water, wind, and open space without long internal flights.
How We Practice Low-Impact Hiking
Stay on trail or areas you are allowed to explore. This is to protect flora and soil.
Always pack in, pack out.
Try to choose trails near home first.
Gently Carpool or combine trips.
Balance rugged hikes with easy preserves.
Learn local natural history as you hike.
This isn’t about saying no to travel. It’s about saying yes to responsible adventure that doesn’t erase the places we love.
A thought as we part….
This year, I aim to build a map of sustainable footsteps. As well as a collection of Ohio parks, preserves, arboretums, city parks, hidden gems, and eco-friendly travel corridors. These reflect how I plan to see the world without leaving a heavy mark behind. Nature is everywhere. Let’s make sure our footprints are thoughtful.
Share with someone you’d like to practice more Eco-friendly ways to love and see nature with!
Before you go please consider supporting Eco-friendly hikes, and art work that takes the lead when it counts! Donation are accepted via CashApp, PayPal, Ko-Fi, or Buy Me a Coffee. This helps to keep our projects and community thriving.
You remember some trips for laughs and snacks, others leave a quiet ripple in your bones. June of 2024 was the latter. A week I spent in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with my fiancé. Camping at Munising campgrounds, wandering Lake Superior’s massive shore, hunting stones, honoring memory by scattering my mom’s ashes into the cool blue water. We enjoyed many local coffee beverages while watching waves roll in like heartbeat rhythms.
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore sits on the southern edge of Lake Superior. The largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. Its cold deep water a clear, glassy mirror to the changing Michigan sky.
The cliffs of Pictured Rocks rise 50 to nearly 200 feet above the water. They are streaked in minerals that paint reds, oranges, greens, blacks and whites into sculpted sandstone faces. These formations stretch for about 15 miles along the 42-mile lakeshore.
Camping & Nights Under the Sky
We stayed five nights at the Munising area campgrounds. Pulling our tent up near the lake edge. We listened to waves crash into dusk and we were woke by bird calls before sunrise. Campgrounds on the lakeshore are primitive but magical. Each site has a fire ring and picnic table. Of course you are also under a vast sky with little to no cell service. Every moment felt rich and unfiltered.
Rock Hounding & Lakeside Wandering
Picking stones isn’t allowed directly inside Pictured Rocks due to protection rules. So we headed a bit farther east near Grand Marais and along Twelvemile Beach. We found uv reactive slag, agates, jasper, granite, and more!
Beaches, Waterfalls & Cliffs
The lakeshore has beaches from sandy Miners Beach to the long empty waves at Twelvemile Beach. They are all mostly framed by deep green forests and airy sky. Waterfalls drop in emerald forests, the region offers dozens of cascades, from Mosquito Falls to Chapel Falls. Each a place you can pause, breathe, and listen.
When you finish reading this, comment and tell me about a trip you took and why it stayed with you.
Views From Water & Trails
From boats that cruise past sea caves, Miners Castle, and the East Channel Lighthouse, to paddling into hidden coves near Lovers Leap and Grand Portal Point, Lake Superior’s moods shift from glass calm to wind-ruffled waves. Trails thread through forests and above shorelines, revealing endless angles on water and stone.
Local Flavor & Small Town Finds
Days of sun and trail work were punctuated by coffee stops and local eats in the Munising area. Pasties, fresh fish plates, pizza, and icy cups of coffee that hit great after sandy hikes. It’s small town food with big soul, the kind you taste better after a day of wind and sun.
Why It’s Unforgettable
We went to roam… to wander… to remember and to love… and every vista answered with something new. Lake Superior’s hush gives you room to think, Pictured Rocks’ colors make your eyes linger, and the Upper Peninsula’s quiet kindness reminds you that the best journeys aren’t just about the places you go. The ones that stay with you matter most.
Kitch-Iti-Kippi
On the way home we stopped at Kitch-iti-kipi, Michigan’s largest natural freshwater spring tucked into Palms Book State Park near Manistique. It felt like the perfect last chapter to a week of wide water and wilderness. The spring’s enormous crystal-clear pool, roughly 200 feet across and about 40 feet deep, pumps out over 10,000 gallons of emerald-green water every minute from limestone fissures below. This keeps the water near a steady 45° Fahrenheit year-round and so clear you can see deep into the bowl’s shifting sands. Of course there were many trout beneath the surface. Visitors glide on a manually operated raft over the quiet, mirror-like water, passing ancient tree trunks and limestone-encrusted rock as if suspended in time itself. Seeing that “Big Spring” under the vast Upper Peninsula sky reminded us that some places stay with you long after the road bends away.
Share with someone who you think would enjoy what Munising and the surrounding Michigan areas have to offer.
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